Injuries
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Many times the cause of the injury is distant to where the symptoms are felt.
This statement, which I tell most patients, holds true so often. Why does your knee start to hurt one day on a run? Did you run wrong that day? Did you stand up wrong? Most likely not. There's a good reason for your injury, and it's not because you're lacking ibuprofen or you haven't used enough ice.
Aside from trauma, injuries primarily occur from being too anaerobic. Your body will be in anaerobic excess if you are exercising too much, not recovering properly, eating the wrong type of diet, lacking proper nutrition, or under too much emotional stress. Injuries don't just pop up one day while you are out for a run or playing tennis. There are almost always warning signs of too much stress and overtraining, just check out the other sections under Athletes. You will not become injured from a lack of anti-inflammatory medication. You may become injured from a diet that cannot fight inflammation to the degree you are creating it though. Basically, you will never be deficient in aspirin, but you may be deficient in the "good" anti-inflammatory fats. As you will see and have learned if you already read the other sections, the hormonal system, primarily the adrenal glands and the pancreas, have to deal with the burden of too much anaerobic exercise, and too much everyday stress. Most injuries have an adrenal gland component to them. Properly addressing the hormonal dysfunctions, dealing with inflammation, and balancing the muscles around and involved with the injury leads to success - not in months or years, but in weeks, and often days.
- PLANTAR FASCIITIS
- SHIN SPLINTS
- BURSITIS
- TENDONITIS
- OVERPRONATION
- ITB FRICTIONAL SYNDROME
- OSGOOD-SCHLATTER'S DISEASE (SYNDROME)
- KNEE PAIN
- GOLFER'S ELBOW & TENNIS ELBOW
- WRIST/HAND PROBLEMS
- CRAMPING
- SHOULDER PAIN & ROTATOR CUFF PROBLEMS
- BACK PAIN
| Return to Top PLANTAR FASCIITIS |
| Plantar fasciitis is a type of foot pain that occurs in the heel and sometimes in or around the arch of the foot as your plantar fascia is the thick connective tissue on the bottom of your foot. Symptoms are usually worse in the morning, and tend to ease off or go away as you walk throughout the day. The pain can be sharp over one specific point, or more diffuse throughout the fascia (sheath of muscle) of the foot. Today this is treated conventionally with "night splints" to help stretch the fascia, and reduce muscle contracture. It is not a very comfortable way to sleep and the therapy is about as beneficial and primitive as a caveman making a square wheel. As with most pain, anti-inflammatories are prescribed. Here's why you really get it, and really fix it >> Plantar fasciitis occurs from the fatigue of the posterior tibialis muscle. This muscle is behind your lower leg bone and supports the main arch of your foot. Problems arise from injury, lower leg dysfunction, and/or adrenal gland (hormonal) stress. Pretty much if you have plantar fasciitis you are under more stress than you can handle - whether that be from overtraining (too much anaerobic activity, or lack of an aerobic base), working too hard, dietary stress (too much sugar, not enough protein or nutrient-dense foods), emotional stress, or other physical trauma/stress - ANYWHERE in the body, not just in the foot. Even a poor fitting pair of shoes can cause this problem. The calf muscles are also commonly involved as often are other leg muscles in the thigh and hip. The imbalance in the muscles causes the plantar fascia to tighten and spasm to help support the foot. Addressing the reason for the muscle imbalances will address the plantar fasciitis problem, and the reason is not because you need to stretch it more, or didn't stretch it enough. Often treatment involves dietary modifications, nutrient supplementation such as natural anti-inflammatories, exercise & training adjustments (more aerobic, less anaerobic), and local muscle therapies. |
| Return to Top SHIN SPLINTS |
| Most people know about shin splints. Just about anyone who has ever played high school sports has rubbed a Dixie cup of ice up and down their shins to deal with the painful shin splints. This is still being prescribed today. I think that the Dixie cup is just as effective in treating this as the actual ice. (haha) There are two types of shin splints - anterior (front of the leg), and posterior (back of the leg). In either case, the shin splints occur from a muscle imbalance between the two. If the tibialis anterior (front muscle) is [neurologically] inhibited (weak), the muscle will easily fatigue when walking or running, causing pain and therefore the "splints". But the weakness can also cause the muscle on the opposite side, the posterior tibialis, to work extra hard to support the foot, so this can cause the shin splints in the back of the leg. Same story if the muscle in the back of the shin is weak causing the front one to work harder. Shin splints are an adrenal gland issue most of the time - which means there is too much physical, dietary, or emotional stress the body cannot adapt to. Sometimes it is from something directly going on within the muscle or involved joints (knee/ankle). Often the same stress will cause either shin splints or plantar fasciitis in a person; no rhyme or reason to it, maybe (un)lucky enough to get both. |
| Return to Top BURSITIS |
| You have hundreds of bursa all over your body which can be thought of as little bags of oil that help reduce friction between two joints moving in opposite directions or where muscles & tendons slide over bone. Bursitis can be caused by a local injury, but it is most often a calcium, protein, and inflammatory problem - more than just joint pain which is often described as hot & knife-like. Here's how bursitis most commonly occurs: When under too much stress, your body requires more protein. This protein has to come from somewhere so it often steals from your bursa. The robbing of protein creates a more alkaline medium. Calcium is deposited in the bursa as a result of the alkaline environment and to help protect the bursa. This creates pain and inflammation = bursitis. Treating the bursitis involves not only dealing with the inflammation but mobilizing the calcium by creating an acidic environment in the tissues. One of the simplest ways to do this is to add 1 TB of vinegar to the diet everyday, (many use apple cider vinegar), though sometimes more may be needed. In addition to acidifying the tissues to mobilize the calcium, sometimes essential fatty acids are needed to help with inflammation. These include the Omega 3 fats flax and fish oil, and Omega 6 fats such as black currant seed, borage, and sesame seed oil. Local therapies are beneficial in cases of bursitis. Balancing the muscles around the inflamed bursa and area of concern is very important; that's the specialty of applied kinesiologists. Additionally, other nutritional considerations may be necessary. |
| Return to Top TENDONITIS |
| Tendonitis is inflammation of a tendon, which is where your muscle connects to a bone. This is probably the biggest complaint that athletes and others have in regards to injuies. It is also one of the most used diagnoses. Resolving tendonitis systemically involves treating the adrenal glands, (as it often is due to muscles fatiguing from too much chronic stress), the pancreas (blood sugar metabolism), and the liver (as sulfur is needed to heal tendons but also detoxify the liver), so the necessary nutritional components can heal the inflamed area. This injury has a lot to do with carbohydrate intolerance & insulin resistance. Click here to read more about this. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are often prescribed but remember that these will deplete sulfur from your body, and that's needed to heal. Ice will often help with the pain and inflammation during the acute phase of the injury, but it should not constantly need to be applied to heal. Local therapies are also needed, such as trigger point therapy and meridian therapy to help with the pain and inflammation. Gait disturbances can cause tendonitis. So walking or running incorrectly due to a muscle imbalance or joint dysfunction or even wearing a poor pair of shoes can result in tendon problems. Your feet and what you put on them will have a dramatic effect on your entire body - not just your feet. There's lots of info on the website here about shoes and foot problems. Use the search engine in the upper right corner of any webpage to check it out. |
| Return to Top OVERPRONATION |
| Overpronation is not an injury but I put it under this section because many people are given this "diagnosis" and it's treated like an injury via footwear support and orthotics. Overpronation does not occur because you're wearing shoes that don't have extra support or because you're lacking orthotics, (more on that under Athletes), though changing the footwear is the remedy given by a lot of physicians and running "experts". Pronation is the natural inward roll of your foot as you walk or run. This is how you absorb shock. If you overpronate, you roll inward too much. You'll see excessive wear on the front inside and back outside (heel area) or your shoes. If you lay your shoes on a flat surface, they'll [naturally] roll in if you've been wearing them for a while and overpronate. I always get a kick out of people at running stores who watch their customer run or walk. They want to try to fit them in a shoe that supports their gait - the way they walk or run. So if they overpronate, they want to put them in a shoe that stops that. If they are a heavy heal striker, then they'll put them in a shoe with a lot of cushion. Yeah, that's their job but ideally that person should be focusing on their gait and structure and walking correctly which is often best accomplished by going barefoot as much as possible. Shoes that have little to no support is the best way to go. Overpronation is a posterior tibialis muscle issue. Yes, the same muscled described above that can cause shin splints, plantar fasciitis, bunions, and neuromas. So as with all posterior tibialis involvements, there is the adrenal glands issue to investigate. The posterior tibialis can no longer support the major arch of the foot, so there is excessive inward motion. A shoe or orthotic that prevents the overpronation is not going to address the issue by a long shot. |
| Return to Top ITB FRICTIONAL SYNDROME |
| If you've had Iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome, then you know how it hurts. I've had it more than once many, many years ago before I knew how to train and eat properly. It's miserable - and taking high doses of NSAIDs didn't help and rubbing DMSO only made me stink! (Runners out there know the DMSO smell.) Many suffer with this injury for months. It's like a knife digging into the side of your leg. The ITB is an extension of a short muscle on the side of your hip called the tensor fascia lata (TFL). The ITB extends from the TFL down to the outside of your knee. Pain occurs anywhere along the ITB, usually in the insertion (by the knee) or somewhere in the middle. You'll have pain running, walking [usually down] stairs, and anytime you try to bend your leg, especially after keeping it straight for a while. Medical treatment these days is cortisone shots and NSAIDs and if that doesn't do it, then surgery to cut and release the band. > That sounds like fishing, but much more miserable because someone would actually be cutting into a thick sheath of tendon. ITB syndrome occurs typically because of two reasons. First is an actual weakness of the TFL itself. This could be from a structural imbalance, an injury somewhere, an insulin issue creating gait disturbance (read my Articles on gait), or from a digestive problem. Second, ITB Syndrome can also occur from an imbalance between the inside and the outside of the leg. Two of the three muscles that support the inside of the knee are related to the adrenal glands. These are the sartorius and the gracilis. If there is adrenal involvement from overtraining/too much stress, these muscles will weaken, causing an over-firing of the muscles on the outside of the leg/knee, which as you now know, is the ITB. Or the muscles on the inside of the leg could be working too hard so the outside of the leg muscles - the TFL - are pulled inward, essentially torquing the leg. Treating the injury with this understanding usually corrects it very quickly, within a couple weeks, if not sooner. If you've ever had ITB syndrome, you probably went through a whole slew of treatments and still had it for three months; that is very common. |
| Return to Top OSGOOD-SCHLATTER'S DISEASE (SYNDROME) |
| This "disease" most commonly occurs in boys aged 10-18, though girls can have it too. It occurs when the area where the patella (knee) tendon attaches to the tibia (lower leg) bone is under too much stress and becomes inflamed or it pulls so hard on the insertion at the bone that it actually ruptures. This pain, as common as it is especially during a child's growth spurt, is very unnecessary. And the fact that conventional medicine takes the "do nothing but ice and rest" approach because it usually resolves within 1-2 years (!!) makes it very frustrating for an active kid to participate in sports due to the pain. Physical therapists and the medial community understand that it is often due to an imbalance between the quadriceps and hamstrings muscles, but they still have this idea that a muscle that is "weaker" needs more exercise and a muscle that is working too hard (stronger) needs to be stretched. Well, those imbalances don't improve at all with that perspective because the imbalance is neurological - those muscles surrounding the knee are out of balance front to back and sometimes inside to outside for various reasons; it's different for each kid. It could be due to another injury in the leg, or opposite leg. It could be from improper footwear. It could be from a dietary condition as the quadriceps are related to the small intestine. Food allergies can and often cause this imbalance. Yes, I'm saying that eating something the child is allergic to can cause this syndrome; I've seen it plenty of times. I've helped kids resolve their Osgood-Schlatter "Disease" quickly, sometimes within one treatment (one hour) by finding out exactly what their imbalance is. Kids are told to deal with it until they outgrow it. Although most will, it keeps them from performing as well as they should, and some kids can't play the sports they want because of the pain. Some adults still have "weak knees" because of this syndrome. It's unnecessary. I don't think Dr. Osgood and Dr. Schlatter knew this way back in 1903. |
| Return to Top KNEE PAIN |
| I don't have a good knee and a bad knee. I have two good ones! So many people have a "good knee" or a "bad knee". Well, there's lots of reasons for knee pain. Head right over to my article "No Need For Knee Pain" and get back to what you'd like to be doing but can't because of that evil-bad knee. |
| Return to Top GOLFER'S ELBOW & TENNIS ELBOW |
| Tennis elbow is pain on the outside of the elbow; golfer's elbow is on the inside whether or not you participate in either sport. These injuries occur from overuse to the muscles and ligaments making up the elbow joint. There are usually a series of muscle imbalances present, not just around the elbow, but also at the shoulder and/or wrist/hand. One of the most common imbalances of tennis elbow is the triceps muscles. One or all three of the triceps can be an issue due to direct muscle injury from overuse, or nutritionally most often from carbohydrate intolerance as the triceps have a strong visceral (organ) relationship with the pancreas. The biceps is the common culprit of golfer's elbow, as are the pronators and wrist flexors of the lower arm. The biceps can be out of balance with the triceps and either problem with the elbow can result. Either one is most often due to carbohydrate metabolism issues. Eating too much sugar and drinking soda or beer out on the golf course and all of a sudden your elbow hurts - well - there you have it. |
| Return to Top WRIST/HAND PROBLEMS |
| Whether the wrist and hand hurts because of "carpal tunnel syndrome" or not, it's better to diagnoses what is going on rather than what you're ultimately diagnosed with. So click here to head over to information on carpal tunnel and wrist and hand problems. |
| Return to Top CRAMPING |
| Cramping can be due to a variety of issues. Rather than write them all here, you can read about them by reading my article "Cramping Your Style". |
| Return to Top SHOULDER PAIN & ROTATOR CUFF PROBLEMS |
| The shoulder is a complex joint. You've got four rotator cuff muscles in the back & side of your shoulder and then your actual deltoid muscles, which people generally call their shoulder. There's the muscles of your upper arm, such as your biceps and chest (pectoralis muscles - 3 of them) which have a lot to do with forward motions, and you've got the muscles coming down from your neck and up your back and side to further support your shoulder joint. So with all these muscles, there's a lot that can and will go wrong if there is a muscle imbalance. Shoulder pain is right up there with knee pain - a lot of people have it and "learn to live" with it everyday. There can be arthritis, tendonitis, and bursitis in the shoulder. There can be loss of mobility from elbow or neck involvement. Whatever the case, two people with the same exact shoulder pain many times have different reasons for their pain. Individualized treatments are most important here to figure out why the shoulder isn't functioning as well as it should, especially when dealing with situations such as a frozen shoulder or chronic displacements. |
| Return to Top BACK PAIN |
| It's too much to discuss all the causes of back pain and all the treatment options, so I decided to talk about just two. >> That is, two of the most overlooked reasons for chronic back pain and frequent injuries. Both are structural with nutritional components. First involves the abdominal muscles. Many therapists mention the abdominal muscles when someone comes to them with an injured back, but they just tell the patient to do more exercises such as crunches. The abdominal weakness is often from some digestive issue or from dehydration. The digestive issue creates abdominal distension causing those muscles to fatigue and this spasms the lower back. You know your abdominals are involved if you have [back] pain when you are lying flat on your back and the pain goes away or gets better when you put your knees up (or under a pillow). You'll also have more pain trying to get up from that lying position. After standing for sometime, the abdominals will no longer be able to support you, so you'll also more than likely have some back pain standing for prolonged periods. Many times you'll have a "sway" back posture. Figuring out what is causing the digestive problem is the goal to fix the lower back pain, or at least support it. This is especially true if the pain is aggravating any lumbar discs. The most common digestive issues are a food allergy, dysbiosis in the gut (which means lack of healthy gut flora and/or bad bacteria, fungus, or yeast), too much sugar or caffeine, and bad "trans" fats (hydrogenated fats - lots of information under Health Topics). The psoas muscles are often involved as much as the abdominals. The psoas makes up part of your hip flexors and does just that - flexes your hip - bringing your thigh up towards your chest. Trouble lifting your leg in such a manner or more back pain bending forward to touch your knees or toes often means the psoas muscles are involved. The second most common type of low back pain involves the iliolumbar ligament. This short and strong ligament connects the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae to the iliac crest (pelvic bone). Irritation to this ligament often causes that one-sided lower back pain as it tries to stabilize the joint between your lumbar spine and the pelvis. The abdominal issue can cause these ligaments trouble as well. A disrupted gait is the number one reason for chronic iliolumbar ligament pain and inflammation. When this ligament loses its support, the stage is set for other injuries to occur, such as disc problems and spinal misalignments. Actually, the involvement of this ligament is a very common reason for a chiropractor to constantly need to adjust your lower back. The bone will never stay in place if the function of the ligament isn't restored. Sometimes this involves direct ligament treatment. Nutritionally this is where carbohydrate intolerance/insulin resistance becomes important as having glucose/insulin issues will "wind you up" in one direction and throw off your gait - leading to an iliolumbar ligament sprain. Check out my two gait articles for more information. |
